Fuel for nuclear bomb in hands of unknown Russian black marketeer, officials say
So, when the USSR disbanded, many ex-soviet states (i.e. Ukraine) were stuck with a nuclear arsenal they couldn't maintain and didn't want.
In theory, Russia took the warheads back and looked after them.
In practice, there was an initial period of everything that wasn't bolted down disappearing from silos, and the response was to fill them with concrete to prevent any further access.
What then happened is gangs came in the dead of night with diggers and drills and unearthed silos, and took who knows what.
My source is a lengthy chat with a chap at Pervomaisk, a Soviet missile silo in Ukraine, who used to be the guy who'd press the button (there are two buttons and two keys, but he explained that you could use the soviet flagpole in there to press the other button). Now he gives tours to tourists. $1 for Ukrainians. $5 for Russians. $10 for ex-USSR members. $20 for foreigners. $100 for Americans - or something like that. I laughed heartily at their pricing structure, before straddling the Satan missile for the obligatory "riding the bomb" photo.
This same phenomenon was mirrored elsewhere in the ex-USSR, and wasn't limited to fissile material - Degelen mountain in Kaz, for one, where they not only dug up left over Pu, but also thousands of tonnes of radioactive copper (cabling used for remote monitoring, power, and detonation of subsurface tests), which made its way into the global electronic supply chain, and was only discovered after they installed x-ray detectors at Dover for scanning for stowaways. My original source for that was a British truck driver who was paid to keep hush and not talk about why he'd ended up with (mild, flu-like, had to retire) radiation sickness - but it hit the press a few years later anyway.
In the article:
"The FBI has privately discounted Moldovan claims that radioactive materials seized in more recent smuggling incidents here were being sought by the Islamic State terrorist group."
Everything's safe, then?
Let's investigate: According to the Moldovan police presentation:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2449125-moldova-law-...
The person interested in buying was of Arab-Islamic origin, Yosif Fiasal Ibrahim, 1975, citizen of Republic of Sudan, Africa.
Also, Sky News:
http://news.sky.com/story/1565320/the-colonel-dirty-bombs-an...
"Investigators found contracts made out to a Sudanese doctor named Yosif Faisal Ibrahim for attack helicopters and armoured personnel carriers.
There was a copy of Ibrahim's passport, and evidence that Chetrus was trying to help him obtain a Moldovan visa. Skype messages suggested he was interested in uranium and the dirty bomb plans.
The deal was interrupted by the sting, but it looked like it was well advanced. A lawyer working with the criminal ring had even travelled to Sudan, officials said."
There are extremists in Sudan endorsing IS, Reuters, 2014:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/24/us-sudan-islamic-s...
Also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudan#Sharia_law
"The legal system in Sudan is based on Islamic Sharia law." "Stoning remains a judicial punishment in Sudan. Between 2009 and 2012, several women were sentenced to death by stoning.[61][62][63]"
FBI's and the article's claim could still be technically true (Ibrahim from Islamic Sudan, not ISIS) but it helps us being better informed.
I'm amazed that no one in this thread has mentioned Project Sapphire yet. It's my favorite bit of 90's spycraft.
Project Sapphire Wikipedia Entry:
Project Sapphire was a successful 1994 covert operation of the United States government in cooperation with the Kazakhstan government to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation as part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. A warehouse at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant outside Ust-Kamenogorsk housed 1,322 pounds (600 kg) of weapons grade enriched uranium to fuel Alfa class submarines (90% U-235). Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the fuel was poorly documented and secured, and in danger of being sold for use in the construction of nuclear weapons.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09...
> Photos of the arrests show a policeman in a ski mask holding a Kalashnikov while Chetrus knelt on a sidewalk in front of the bank. He would eventually be sentenced to five years in prison.
This guy is involved in the sale of enriched uranium and he gets FIVE YEARS?!
Just got through reading "The Dead Hand", which is the story of the end of the Cold War. Highly recommended for those interested in how it all played out.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002PXFYPQ/ref=dp-kindle-re...
It's frankly amazing that this hasn't happened much sooner. The amount of biological, chemical, and nuclear material lying around the former Soviet Union, basically guarded by people with starvation-level salaries and no future, was beyond alarming.
In fact, as bad as this is, the chemical and biological material was much worse. Some of that stuff could take out a city, then proceed to decimate an entire nation. Extremely scary stuff.
Also of interest is this table showing prior siezures (by law enforcement and government security agencies, I assume) of nuclear material, including over a dozen instances of highly enriched uranium (!)
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/11/12/18849/previous-sei...
It's kind of odd that uranium smugglers write each other sales reciepts and label the samples. It seems like something you'd want to downplay in your paperwork...
"The guard found a receipt, written in Cyrillic, for the purchase of “uranium 235,” and then, after pulling apart an air compressor in the trunk, found a lead container inside with that label on it."
Everything about this whole thing seems kind of implausible, and poorly substantiated by anonymous "intelligence sources." Kind of reminds me the Valorie Plame incident.
Ahem.. I mean, we should all be very afriad, and obey the nearest authority figure!
If western intelligence knows about this and wants to get it off the black market, why don't they just buy it themselves? Surely the criminals selling it don't care where the money comes from.
I'm interested in how technically difficult building an actual nuclear weapon would be if you got your hands on one of these samples. The idea that crazy islamic extremists could one day get their hands on this uranium and cause significant, extended damage is truly terrifying.
Unknown Russian black marketeer OR an unknown state's spy agency with a very effective honeypot for targeting and eliminating terrorist organizations? If the latter its a terrific self-funding operation taking some very bad people off the street. If you're going to worry about nuclear detonation then concern yourself with command and control of existing weaponized stockpiles. Stewarship is a challenge for developed nations, its got to be a nightmare for developing countries.
I don't mean to engage in conspiranoia here (and I highly doubt there's an overt conspiratorial explanation), but right now I'm finding 'murmurs' like this especially alarming.
When I look back at history, it seems like major economic turmoil is very often followed by outbreaks of major warfare or at the very least significant flirtations with major conflict. The Great Depression was followed by WWII, the decline toward the end of the 60s by the hottest period of Vietnam, the dot.com crash by 9/11 and Iraq, and the 2008 crash by the Ukraine crisis and what seems to have been a near miss between the USA, Russia, and possibly other powers. 2008 was also followed fairly shortly by the rise of ISIS and a re-heating of Iraq and its general region.
We're hearing a lot about an impending emerging market debt crisis, and we know China has gone to 'heroic' efforts to backstop its stock market and real estate markets against the first stages of what appeared to be an unfolding crash. It's entirely possible that another economic crisis is brewing in China and other 'emerging' markets, and it could be a bad one. If that's the case at some point it will exceed the ability of even China's autocracy to prevent it with currency and market manipulations.
As I led off with above, I doubt that there's an overt decision that happens. I doubt anyone says 'well, the economy's down so we better have a war!' Instead I suspect it's a bit like tectonic plates. When an economic crash happens it exacerbates stresses that are already present in the system and quite likely pushes some people and/or state actors over the edge. People often behave more desperately and irrationally under economic stress; you can see this in the willingness of former Soviet officials to actually distribute such deadly material during the waning days of the USSR. Not being able to eat is a powerful motivator.
Edit: not deleting this, but I hate to have posted it hours before hearing about Paris.
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If this group has had enriched uranium for sale for the past sixteen years you would think that they would have sold it to North Korea or Iran a long time ago.
If the US govt hadn't lied to us for the past few decades, I'd tend to give them the benefit of doubt here, but something tells me this is more US propaganda. I hate having to say that about my own govt but they have motives to make Russia look like the bad guy in every regard.